On the trail of Rose's Oatmeal Stout

Rose's Oatmeal Stout, based on current evidence, was the first of its type. But tracking down more information on its brewer, Rose & Wilson, is proving trickier than anticipated.

But "A Century of British Brewers" lists no brewery of that name. Neither does "Hull and East Yorkshire Breweries", nor "The Brewing Industry: a Guide to Historical Records".

The trademark case mentioned that they had breweries in Hull and Grimsby. I'm pretty sure this is the Grimsby branch:

"The ordinary operations on Monday were supplemented by Messrs. Thomas, Peyer, and Miles' offer of a couple of breweries, together with a large parcel of Shares in such industries. The total realisations of the day, nearly £70,000, were mainly the result of this firm's success herein. The properties were the Wellow Brewery, Great Grimsby, with modern 15-quarter plant, and 19 freehold and leasehold hotels, public and beer houses, which changed hands at £23,000 ; the goodwill of the trade is represented by the beer duty payments last year, which amounted to nearly £3000, and the sole right to manufacture Rose and Co.'s oatmeal stout;"
London Standard - Monday 14 May 1900, page 2.

Which gets a small entry:

"Lewis & Barker, Wellow Brewery, 24 Wellowgate, founded 1802. Acquired by the Nottingham Brewery Ltd. 1900 with 19 tied houses. Closed 1944."
"A Century of British Brewers Plus" by Norman Barber, 2005, page 75.

It wasn't a very big brewery. 15-quarters equates to about 60 barrels of standard-strength beer. So an annual capacity of maybe 18,000 barrels.

This shows how exclusive that right to Oatmeal Stout was:

"Messrs J. and T. Usher, Ltd., the New City Brewery, River Street, Bristol, have an inviting stall, and thereat samples are given of their speciality—oatmeal stout. This is brewed by J. and T. Usher, Ltd.. from oatmeal, specially suitable for those requiring light nourishing stout. It possesses all the nutritive, strengthening, and stimulating properties of oatmeal. Sufferers from indigestion, neuralgia, anaemia, sleeplessness, brain fag, and general debility experience great benefit by regular use it. liquid food, and forms an agreeable and refreshing beverage"

 See how they pushed the health aspect of Oatmeal Stout? I'm sure it's totally true. A newspaper wouldn't lie, would it?

Saturday in Birmingham

I'll be in Birmingham this weekend. The main reason is that I'm giving a talk as part of the Birmingham Beer Bash.

It's about Brettanomyces in British brewing and is at 13:30 on Saturday. You'll also have the chance to buy a copy of my book, The Homebrewer's Guide to Vintage Beer, and get it signed.

You can sign up for the talk here:

http://birminghambeerbash.co.uk/fringe_events



You can always buy my book here if you aren't coming to Birmingham:

The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer.

Cannon Brewery Porter quality 1922 - 1923

As we penetrate further into the jungle of 1920's draught beer, we're being swallowed by the darkness.

Which is another way of saying ther beers are getting even worse. Cannon, if you remember, was a fairly small company (they had 110 tied houses in 1895, according to Norman Barber*) with a  brewery crammed into the middle of Clerkenwell. They were bought by Taylor Walker in 1930 but surprisingly kept brewing until 1955.

Cannon's scores have been, to be polite, patchy so far. Their Mild Ale came a respectable fifth of seventeen with an average score of 0.54. It wasn't such a happy story for their Burton Ale which came last of fourteen with a poor average score of -0.73. Barclay Perkins Burton was the only other one with a negative average score. It was a similar story for their Pale Ale, which was joint last of fifteen with an average score of -0.9. Again, only two beers had negative average scores, the other being Charrington.

Their Porter is a little weaker than the average, but other wise unspectacular. Let's see how it scored:

Cannon Brewery Porter quality 1922 - 1923
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Flavour	score	Price
1922	Porter	1010	1035	3.24	71.43%	nasty	-3	6d
1922	Porter	1010	1034	3.11	70.59%	poor	-1	6d
1922	Porter	1010.2	1036.2	3.37	71.82%	sour	-3	6d
1922	Porter	1010.2	1035.2	3.24	71.02%	v poor	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1009.8	1032.8	2.98	70.12%	nasty	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1008	1033.5	3.31	76.12%	sour	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1009.4	1034.9	3.30	73.07%	sour	-3	5d
1923	Porter	1009.4	1033.9	3.17	72.27%	thin poor	-2	6d
1923	Porter	1009	1036	3.50	75.00%	v poor going off	-2	6d
Average		1009.6	1034.6	3.25	72.38%		-2.56
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

That's impressive: not one good score. In facy, "poor" is the best score any sample could muster. An impressive two-thirds of the examples get the worst score of -3.

My guesss is that Porter sales were slow and that, combined with the low gravity, left it going off, unloved in the cellar while the punters tucked into Mild or Stout. Something that didn't taste like vinegar. By this time draught Porter was available in few parts of the country. Probably hardly anywhere other than the London area and Ireland.

I wonder what Lomndon brewers thought? They must have realised Porter was dying. But I suppose while there was still a market, however small and diminishing, it was worth their while to brew it. That's the joy of parti-gyling: it allows you to brew very small batches econmically, as long as there's a more popular beer in the same general style. The continued thirst for Stout in London meant that was the case for Porter. It took the upheaval of WW II for London brewers to finally pull the plug on Porter.

My advice should you find yourself in a Cannon pub? Drink Mild!

Loads more of this to come, as I'm sure you realise.




* "A Century of British Brewes plus" by Norman Barber, 2005, page 83.

Going pro

I'm giving patreon a try to see if that gets me any closer to financial independence.

http://www.patreon.com/user?u=241072

Sponsorship anyone?

You know what would be great? If I could finally get on with researching full-time.

There's only one teeny-weeny problem. A little thing called cash. The money I currently earn isn't enough to feed and clothe me, let alone the rest of my family.

What I need is a sponsor. Or several sponsors. To pay me the equivalent of a salary so I can on with doing what I do best: researching and writing. I think my work is a service to the whole beer world. But if I'm to continue at my current level, I need support.

So if you feel like contributing, get in touch. Obviously I'd be be prepared to give something back in return.

Expensive Oatmeal Stout

I'm not done with Oatmeal Stout yet. I happened to comae across this advert which, though not obvious at first glance, tells us quite a bit about Oatmeal Stout.

Take a look and see if you can spot anything:

Evening Telegraph - Friday 02 December 1898, page 1.

The most obvious point is that in a catalogue of fashionable, expensive beers, Oatmeal Stout gets top billing. Literally.

Look at the price, too. It's almost as expensive as Imperial Stout and costs as much as Bass or Allsopp Pale Ale, two expensive beers. Maclay's Oat Malt Stout of 1909 had the not particularly high gravity of 1062. If this Oatmeal Stout were of a similar strength it would be dreadful value for money.

I find it very odd that with the amounnt of bigging up the advert gives to Oatmeal Stout, it doesn't mention the brewer. It seems as if the fact that it's an Oatmeal Stout is more impor5tant tahn the identity of the brewer. You would never see a Burton Pale Ale advertised without the brewer's name.

Overall this advery demonstrates a trend with beer styles. When they're new and all the rage, they're poor value for money: Pale Ale and Lager a re good examples of this phenomenon. Over time, as a style stops being the latest must-have item, the price premium is eroded.

Jsut thought I'd throw in a little of my evolutionary theory of beer styles. I must write it all down properly sometime. I've reams of hand-scribbled notes on the topic somewhere. Amongst all my piles of stuff. You'll be the first to know, should I miraculously unearth it.

Barclay Perkins Porter quality 1922 - 1923

"Thank you, Ronald," I can hear you saying. "Thank you for continuing your series on draught beer quality in 1920's London.

We've now got as far as Porter. If I'm honest, the Porter analyses are the most revealing about what was happening in the London pub trade. It gives some clues as to both the state Porter and why it was in decline. You could call it the Mild Effect.

What's that? Let me explain. In the 1970's, Mild sales were falling. Dramatically falling in some regions. This decline kicked off a vicious circle. A low volume of sales, meant that it was often too old and in bad condition. Which deterred drinkers from buying, leading to even lower sales and even poorer beer quality. Eventually it wasn't worth the landlord's while to sell it any more.

The comments on flavour in the Whitbread Gravity Book tend to confirm this. To put it bluntly: there was a lot of crap Porter about in the 1920's. Why do I think poor sales were to blame? Because I can see the decline that Porter went into after WW I quite clearly in Whitbread's production figures by type.

Here's what happened with their Porter 1910 - 1929:

Output of Whitbread Porter 1910 - 1929
year	barrels brewed	Total Port	Total Ale & Porter	% of Porter/Stout	% of total
1910	108,166	361,847	850,828	29.89%	12.71%
1911	101,934	368,953	907,173	27.63%	11.24%
1912	111,239	386,734	988,981	28.76%	11.25%
1913	127,838	378,629	901,807	33.76%	14.18%
1914	123,085	382,984	900,636	32.14%	13.67%
1915	65,216	314,169	762,438	20.76%	8.55%
1916	80,298	369,130	777,127	21.75%	10.33%
1917	8,493	286,163	578,502	2.97%	1.47%
1918	7,136	110,695	413,112	6.45%	1.73%
1919	21,602	117,284	565,624	18.42%	3.82%
1920	24,910	234,413		10.63%
1921	15,688	238,623	675,647	6.57%	2.32%
1922	16,562	192,717	576,118	8.59%	2.87%
1923	14,165	169,977	505,097	8.33%	2.80%
1924	15,948	178,192	551,616	8.95%	2.89%
1925	14,943	163,932	527,977	9.12%	2.83%
1926	13,511	168,513	512,528	8.02%	2.64%
1927	10,708	149,725	462,250	7.15%	2.32%
1928	10,105	142,153	488,357	7.11%	2.07%
1929	5,558	85,779	443,888	6.48%	1.25%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/075, LMA/4453/D/01/076, LMA/4453/D/01/077, LMA/4453/D/01/078, LMA/4453/D/01/079, LMA/4453/D/01/080, LMA/4453/D/01/081 LMA/4453/D/01/082, LMA/4453/D/01/083, LMA/4453/D/01/084, LMA/4453/D/01/085, LMA/4453/D/01/086, LMA/4453/D/01/087, LMA/4453/D/01/088, LMA/4453/D/01/089, LMA/4453/D/01/090, LMA/4453/D/01/091, LMA/4453/D/01/092, LMA/4453/D/01/093, LMA/4453/D/01/094, LMA/4453/D/01/095, LMA/4453/D/09/104, LMA/4453/D/09/105, LMA/4453/D/09/106, LMA/4453/D/09/107, LMA/4453/D/09/108, LMA/4453/D/09/109, LMA/4453/D/09/110, LMA/4453/D/09/111, LMA/4453/D/09/112, LMA/4453/D/09/113, LMA/4453/D/09/114, LMA/4453/D/09/115, LMA/4453/D/09/116, LMA/4453/D/09/117, LMA/4453/D/09/118, LMA/4453/D/09/119, LMA/4453/D/09/120, LMA/4453/D/09/121, LMA/4453/D/09/122 and LMA/4453/D/09/123.

Whitbread's Porter was in surprisingly good health leading up to WW I, with sales increasing. The war put a stop to that and output of it almost dried up after 1916. It bounced back a little in 1920, then went into a steady decline.

It also seems that many Porter drinkers switched to Stout. During the war, often the Porter and Stout on offer in a pub were the same beer, the only difference being the price. After the war, standard draught Stout was similar in gravity to pre-war Porter, in the range 1052 - 1056. Switchching to Stout is exactly what I would have done, if I had been able to afford it.

On with Barclay Perkins' Porter. Remember that they had been one of the great Porter breweries, and had brewed Porter for over 150 years. It's fairly typical in terms of gravity and ABV. Let's take a look at the details:

Barclay Perkins Porter quality 1922 - 1923
Year	Beer	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Flavour	score	Price
1922	Porter	1013.2	1040.2	3.49	67.16%	Poor & thin	-2	6d
1922	Porter	1011.5	1035.5	3.10	67.61%	v fair	2	6d
1922	Porter	1010.5	1034.5	3.11	69.57%	v poor	-3	6d
1923	Porter	1012	1037.5	3.30	68.00%	fair	1	6d
1923	Porter	1010.8	1035.8	3.24	69.83%	fair	1	5d
1923	Porter	1012.5	1038	3.30	67.11%	going off	-2	6d
1923	Porter	1012.8	1039.8	3.49	67.84%	moderate	1	6d
1923	Porter	1009.8	1038.8	3.76	74.74%	v poor	-3	6d
Average		1011.6	1037.5	3.35	68.98%		-0.63
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

One thing I forgot to mention. For Porter and Stout there's no mention of clarity, presumably because of their dark colour. As you can see, the quality wasn't great. Only half get a positive score and only one of those scores higher than 1.

I can see why drinkers shunned Porter in the 1920's. It was often pretty crap. The lowered gravity wouldn't have helped. If only I had some similar information from before the war to confirm that its quality had declined. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Still a few more hours to get 13% off my Lulu books

with this code:

FLASHY13


Barclay Perkins Bookstore

Lille (part three)

We're in search of food. Which is often the case. I've this terrible eating habit. I eat every single day. Without fail.

The best thing about having Dolores  as a travelling companion is that it reduces the planning and preparation work I have to do. Less work for me is always a good thing. She's very much the organised type. She's taken out a guide book to Lille from the library. It has some handy hints. Including where the estaminets are.

An estaminet is a type of traditional boozer found in this region. They've a reputation for a cosy old-fashioned atmosphere, good local food and lots of beer.

"Do you fancy eating in an estaminet, Ronald?"

"You can twist my arm."

There are a few estaminets clustered around Avenue du Peuple Belge. Getting there from the citadel is a piece of piss - just follow the Rue Négrier. Which we do. It's an unusual street, with some old houses so large that they're small palaces. That's the sort of thing you sometimes see in France. It's a sign of how loaded they were a couple of centuries back.

I was surprised by the look of Avenue du Peuple Belge on the map. It seems far too wide for a street in the old part of town. A hint was given by the change in the street name ro Rue du Pont Neuf (New Bridge Street). Sure enough, it became a bridge crossing over Avenue du Peuple Belge. Obviously it was some sort of filled in waterway.

I tried looking up the history of it on the web. But all I could find out was that Avenue du Peuple Belge had a problem with the nuisance caused by street prostitution in 2011.

The guide book marked our destination estaminet, Le Petit Barbue d'Anvers, as being of the corner of Pont Neuf and Avenue du Peuple Belge. Annoyingly, it didn't give a precise street address. We weren't even sure which of the two streets it was on. After a while of fruitlessly wandering around, we gave up and headed for Rue de Gand which is home to two estaminets.

We had more luck here. I'd had enough of walking and we rushed into the first estaminet we passed, L'Estaminet 't Rijsel. Now there's an odd name, mixing French and Dutch. Risel being the Dutch name for Lille. It's everything I've hoped for.

I've been in a few pubs over the years. And I can recognise the difference between old junk bought in a job lot and thrown around apparently randomly and a pub where suff has been just hung on walls an put on shelves over decades. This is the real deal. I spend a stupid amount of time looking at this crap.

It's only noon, but it's about half full. Everyone is speaking French, which is another good sign. We get ourselves half litres while we work out what we want to eat. Ch'ti Blonde for Dolores, their Tripel for me. I always opt fore the option with more alcoholic goodness. Here are our beers:

The menu is a school exercsie book. Pretty funky. The food, once again, is pure Belgian. I go for a Carbonade Famande, which is a type of beer casserole. It's rather nice.

As I'm nibbling at my food, something strikes me. Every single customer is drinking beer. And not the same beer, but all sorts of different ones. That wouldn't be so surprising if they were 20-something hipsters, but they aren't. Most are older than me.

Almost forgot. They also have hops hanging from the ceiling:

On the way back to our hotel, I drag Dolores into a giant FNAC. She's had enough walking for today and sits down while I go off and rummage through the books. Almost immediately, I find this: "Le Guide des Brasseurs et Bieres de France" by Robert Dutin. What a handy book. It lists all the breweries in France, which now number a surprising 590.Last time I counted - maybe 5 years ago - there were about half that.

I also pick up a book about WW I.Nice to get a French perspective on the conflict. I've already got one in German.

When I'm all booked up, we go back to our hotel for a rest. I need it. God knows how far we've walked today.







L'Estaminet 't Rijsel
25 Rue de Gand,
59800 Lille.
Tel: +33 3 20 15 01 59
http://www.ruedesrestos.com/restaurateurs/rijsel/



Fnac
20, rue Saint-Nicolas,
59000 Lille.
http://www.fnac.com/Lille/Fnac-Lille/cl93/w-4

League table of London Pale Ales in the 1920's

I may have processed the final individual Pale Ale, but I'm not quite done. A review of results is in order.

I'll warn you now: it's going to be table overload. I can't help playing around with the numbers and presenting them in different ways. I think we can learn much from them, especially the overall numbers for each type of beer.

The good news is that the majority of average scores per brewery were positive. The two negative average score - for Cannon and Charrington - were only very slightly below zero. I'm not sure how significant it is that both are Ordinary Bitters.

This first table demonstrates one point very clearly: that the beers of each type were very similar in their specifications across the different breweries. The Best Bitters in particular have virtually identical gravities. I think this is partly as a result of the price/gravity controls which were in place in the years after WW I. And also just commercial reality. Because so much of the price was solely the tax, there was little room for flexibility. Tax made up about 40% of the retail price in the 1920s.

Let's start with the league table based on average score. Once again, Whitbread are the champions:

League table of 1920s London Pale Ales by score
Brewery	FG	OG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	score
Whitbread	1011.3	1046.0	4.51	75.55%	2.25
Truman	1008.0	1047.5	5.14	83.09%	1.62
City of London	1008.7	1045.5	4.79	80.82%	1.00
Huggins	1008.7	1046.0	4.86	81.10%	0.36
Meux	1007.4	1044.8	4.87	83.36%	0.33
Barclay Perkins	1008.7	1045.6	4.81	80.88%	0.25
Wenlock	1006.9	1044.5	4.90	84.56%	0.09
Hoare	1012.1	1046.3	4.44	73.83%	0.00
Lion Brewery	1010.7	1046.5	4.65	77.05%	0.00
Cannon	1009.0	1045.2	4.72	80.06%	-0.09
Charrington	1008.7	1048.2	5.14	81.91%	-0.09
Average 8d	1009.1	1046.0	4.80	80.20%	0.52
Watney	1011.4	1053.8	5.54	78.90%	2.21
Courage	1012.0	1053.8	5.46	77.93%	1.25
Mann	1008.3	1053.4	5.88	84.44%	0.07
Benskin	1010.1	1053.6	5.68	81.23%	0.00
Average 9d	1010.4	1053.7	5.64	80.63%	0.88
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

I'm struck by the high degree of attenuation. For both Ordinary and Best Bitter it's over 80%.
Overall the standard is pretty high, at least in terms of score. let's see how they do for clarity:

League table of 1920s London Pale Ales by clarity
Brewery	No. examples	no. bright	% bright	no. good flavour	% good flavour
Truman	13	11	84.62%	12	92.31%
Whitbread	4	3	75.00%	4	100.00%
Watney	14	9	64.29%	14	100.00%
Wenlock	11	7	63.64%	6	54.55%
Cannon	11	6	54.55%	6	54.55%
Huggins	11	6	54.55%	7	63.64%
Barclay Perkins	12	6	50.00%	7	58.33%
Courage	12	6	50.00%	8	66.67%
Hoare	10	5	50.00%	4	40.00%
Lion Brewery	10	5	50.00%	6	60.00%
Meux	12	5	41.67%	9	75.00%
City of London	13	5	38.46%	10	76.92%
Mann	14	5	35.71%	7	50.00%
Benskin	9	3	33.33%	4	44.44%
Charrington	11	3	27.27%	5	45.45%
Average	167	85	50.90%	109	65.27%
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

Just ever so slightly over half being fully bright is poor. Only Whitbread and Truman scored really well on this point. And as for Charrington - pathetic. Barely a quarter of their samples were clear. You can see that there's not a direct relationship between clarity and flavour quality. City of London is a good example. Not much more than a third clear, but three-quarters with a good flavour. Whoever would have thought I'd be able to check something like this almost 100 years later?

There are some impressive performances in terms of flavour:

League table of 1920s London Pale Ales by % good flavour
Brewery	No. examples	no. bright	% bright	no. good flavour	% good flavour
Whitbread	4	3	75.00%	4	100.00%
Watney	14	9	64.29%	14	100.00%
Truman	13	11	84.62%	12	92.31%
City of London	13	5	38.46%	10	76.92%
Meux	12	5	41.67%	9	75.00%
Courage	12	6	50.00%	8	66.67%
Huggins	11	6	54.55%	7	63.64%
Lion Brewery	10	5	50.00%	6	60.00%
Barclay Perkins	12	6	50.00%	7	58.33%
Wenlock	11	7	63.64%	6	54.55%
Cannon	11	6	54.55%	6	54.55%
Mann	14	5	35.71%	7	50.00%
Charrington	11	3	27.27%	5	45.45%
Benskin	9	3	33.33%	4	44.44%
Hoare	10	5	50.00%	4	40.00%
Average	167	85	50.90%	109	65.27%
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

Whitbread, Watney and Truman all do very well, the first two with perfect scores, the other pretty close. I must admit surprise at Charrington's piss poor performance. They're a brewery that had a good reputation, yet they're stumbling along at the bottom end of the tables.

Now it's time to compare the statistics of the beer types we've looked at so far. In all, there are almost 500 samples:

Averages per beer type
beer type	No. examples	no. bright	% bright	no. good flavour	% good flavour	average score
Burton Average	138	61	44.20%	92	66.67%	0.72
Mild Average	188	112	59.57%	112	59.57%	0.16
X Average	170	104	61.18%	106	62.35%	0.23
MA Average	18	8	44.44%	6	33.33%	-0.18
PA Average	167	85	50.90%	109	65.27%	0.62
8d PA Average	118	62	52.54%	76	64.41%	0.52
9d PA Average	49	23	46.94%	33	67.35%	0.88
Average	493	258	52.33%	313	63.49%	0.57
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001

Burton Ale comes out on top for score. As long as we lump all the Pale Ales together. Split out Best and Ordinary Bitter and Best Bitter wins. Surprisingly, Burton scores worst for clarity. Elsewhere, Mild is bottom for everything. Splitting out X Ale and MA improves things a bit for the former. Other than for clarity, a general rule seems to be the higher the gravity, the better chance of a good pint.

Finally a ranking by brewery. The number is the position in the relevant league table.

Ranking by brewery
Brewery	Burton	Mild	PA	Total
Whitbread	1	4	1	6
Watney	8	2	2	12
Courage	2	8	4	14
Mann	3	1	10	14
Truman	9	6	3	18
Wenlock	6	3	9	18
Meux	4	11	7	22
Lion	7	7	12	26
Huggins	11	10	6	27
Hoare	10	9	11	30
Cannon	14	5	14	33
City of London	12	17	5	34
Barclay Perkins	13	15	8	36
Charrington	5	16	15	36

You know what's really spooky about that result? The top five - Whitbread, Watney, Courage, Mann and Truman - were, if I remember correctly, the last five large breweries in London. Most of the bottom half are breweries that disappeared before WW II. With the exception of the two relegation positions. I'm very surprised - and disappointed - to see Barclay Perkins and Charrington propping up the table.

It looks as if, in general, the better the quality of your beer, the better your chances of long-term survival. Either that or the larger the brewery, the better the beer quality.

Finally done with Pale Ale. Next it's the turn of Porter.